Postal carriers collect food donations for Gleaners

Garden City residents donate between 10,000 to 15,000 pounds of food annually to the National Association of Letter Carriers food drive.

This year the U.S. Post Office carriers union will collect bags of food May 14. The process is simple: Residents leave their donations of non perishable food items in a bag by their mailboxes and when the carrier drops off the mail they pick-up the donations.

“It’s the largest single day food drive annually,” explained KaSandra Erwin, a Garden City postal carrier, union steward for the Garden City office and NALC executive member for branch 1.

Residents received bags for the donations on their porches this week. Food donations can also be dropped off at the Garden City Post office, 140 Merriman Road.

“It’s an exhausting day to be honest, but it’s more rewarding than it is exhausting,” Erwin said.

She paused a moment, laughed and added, “We pick up people’s trash all the time when they leave it on the porch.”

All the food donations go to Gleaners Food Bank in Detroit.

“They get a lot of donations around the holidays, but during the summer food sources are scarce,” Erwin said. Kids who are in the food program at school are on vacation and they rely heavily on the food bank.”

This is the 24th year of the food drive across the country and during t hat time more than 1 billion pounds of food has been collected.

“We’ve done very well in Garden City,” Erwin said. “I’d like to thank everyone in advance.”